


Dust in the Wind

by KDotFaul



Category: The Epic of Gilgamesh
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:28:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21663709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDotFaul/pseuds/KDotFaul
Summary: Alternate Universe. As Enkidu lays dying, a malevolent force comes to take him to the netherworld. Final project for my Ancient History primary source project.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Dust in the Wind

Dust in the Wind

A lost tale of Gilgamesh.

Katherine Faulhaber

Enkidu’s journey to the house of dust [1]begins with the wind, as it will also end.

As he lies in his sickbed, he first becomes aware of the breeze as it passes over his face and stirs up the dust around him. It cools the sweat on his forehead, and as he opens his eyes, he becomes aware of the figure kneeling at his side.

It is Pazuzu, demon of the southwest wind[2]. Enkidu knows him to be the brother of Humbaba, the great giant from the cedar forest whose head he has had a hand in severing and bringing down the Euphrates. The demon king[3] glowers as he looks over Enkidu, left pitiful by the wasting disease.

“You don’t appear to be much of a wild man, Enkidu.” His tone, mocking and disgusted, rings in Enkidu’s mind. But before he can respond, Pazuzu leans in close to take a sniff of him. His dog-like upper jowl curls back[4] . “Worse yet you smell like death.”

Enkidu struggles to speak, his body so weakened, and his throat dry. The demon’s eyes flash with amusement, and Enkidu finally manages. “Have you come to kill me? Will you take my head for your brother?”

Pazuzu sneers. “Your head is of no use to me, nor Humbaba. You will die, but not by my paw. I came to take you to your end myself, so I can be sure that Gilgamesh won’t find a way to save you.”

Gilgamesh. There’s a pang of regret in Enkidu’s chest at the thought, being snatched away by this winged monster without a final word. His and Gilgamesh’s bond has become like that of brothers, and now, it will end without even a goodbye. He sets his jaw as Pazuzu watches him; the deep, dark eyes of this monstrous king seem to stare straight into his very soul. But he won’t let him see his regret if he can help it.

“Fine,” Comes his reply at last, the dryness of his mouth makes the word sound coarse. He knows when they reach the house of ash, that feeling will only get worse. “I suggest you take me quickly, then, because if they see you, they will most certainly try to stop you.”

“I don’t need your permission.” Pazuzu snaps, his teeth clacking to punctuate the words. His feral expression growing only more beastly as he takes hold of Enkidu’s arm and yanks him to his feet. With the wild man standing, Pazuzu tucks him under his arm, flaps his enormous wings, and bursts up into the air.

Enkidu clings to him for fear of falling, but when he gets a brief glimpse of the place, he can see his body there, still now, on the ground. That’s it, then, he’s dead. The idea of journeying to the afterlife was anything but thrilling, not even slightly exciting. Enkidu knows that when a person dies, they end up in the viscera of Asag[5], and he imagines that this will be his most unpleasant experience yet, possibly even worse than the wasting disease he’s just suffered.

For a while, they seem to soar effortlessly. After a while, however, Pazuzu pants and starts to descend. “You’re heavy, I need to rest.” Enkidu says nothing, but he nods his understanding. When he feels his feet brush the ground, he braces for impact, and Pazuzu releases him.

There’s a house nearby, and Enkidu walks to the window to look inside, half expecting it to be empty. He’s greeted instead with the sight of a family, two adults with a baby. Pazuzu comes up alongside him and looks in as well, making a noise that Enkidu isn’t sure how to place. “Lamaštu will come,” he states simply. “She always comes for the young.”

Enkidu glances to him. “But why?”

“To devour them.” His response is dark, his voice low. He seems to sense the horror that grips Enkidu immediately. “We’ll stay until she does.”

“I don’t want to watch her eat that child!”

Pazuzu glances over, shaking his enormous head. “She won’t with me here. You’ll see.”

It’s a long time before darkness falls. Enkidu feels restless, and just when he thinks he may not be able to take another moment, Pazuzu yanks him to hide him around the side of the building. He doesn’t have a moment to ask why, he can hear her. She’s sniffing down the street, nose pressing up against the bottoms of each door[6] along the way. Lamaštu is more lion-like where Pazuzu is more canine, but she’s frightening, nonetheless.

When she comes to the house next to the one they’re at, Enkidu watches closely as she’s lead to it by her nose. She sucks in air through her nose with fervor and reaches for the handle when Pazuzu comes bounding from around the building. He growls at her and she stiffens.

“Let me by!”

“No.” He snarls, stepping into the light of the window. The way the small amount of light casts across his features makes him even more terrifying, and she recoils. “Go away, Lamaštu. You will not be eating here tonight.”

There’s dismay and disgust across her features, but she backs away without a fight. “One of these days, Pazuzu. One day you will not keep me away.”

“That day is not today.”

She snivels as she backs away, and then she turns heel and darts off into the darkness. As he watches her go, Enkidu looks to Pazuzu, his eyes wide with amazement. “Why is she so afraid of you?” [7]

Pazuzu shrugs, passing his tongue over his teeth. “That is not the important thing, Wild Man, the important thing, is that she is.” He looks to the night sky and then to Enkidu. “Come. I’ve rested enough to take you the rest of the way.”

Enkidu grimaces, having forgotten why they were here in the first place, but he nods. There’s no getting away from him, and there was no point now, as a spirit. Pazuzu comes to grab him again, and before Enkidu can even think about how much he’s going to miss this adventure that his life has become, the demon is up off the ground and flapping his wings aggressively against the wind.

“I sense your dread, Enkidu. I think you may be surprised.”

Enkidu looks up at the beast, shaking his head. “By the house[8]? By the dust? What will be a surprise?”

“The dancing. The joy. You can escape the dust. I do not doubt that you will find that way.” The demon king shifts an eye to him. “You may be wild yet. Perhaps you will find Humbaba and you can be wild together.”

A smirk twitches across Enkidu’s lips. “I shouldn’t think he would want to be anywhere near me.”

“Again, you may be surprised. Humbaba was not like you, or Gilgamesh. He was too easy to trust, but he was not a monster, apart from the way he looked[9]. You men are all monsters.” The words sit low in Enkidu’s gut, and instinctively he wants to argue with Pazuzu, but he doesn’t. There’s truth that rings in his mind, men do ugly things, he’s had a hand in ugliness. What good deeds he may have had a hand in seemed to pale in comparison.

The land becomes wilder beneath them and soon, Enkidu realizes they are descending again, toward the mountains. They drop rapidly, and finally Pazuzu releases him from his clawed grasp again. It takes him a moment to get his bearings, his legs are wobbly. Once he does, he looks to Pazuzu, who motions for him to follow into the trees. “It isn’t far. But we will continue on foot.”

Enkidu nods and sets off to follow behind him. Pazuzu’s steps are careful and measured, quick and quiet. He could sneak into a house unnoticed and slay every person within, and it would probably be a while before anyone knew. The thought makes him shudder, but he remembers the family. “Why did you save them? I’ve heard that you are a force to be reckoned with. I did not think mercy was one of your qualities.”

“I am merciful to those who carry my amulets[10], and they did as such. I do not care for you men. If I am shown the proper respect, I’ll keep that woman away from your young.” There’s a pause and Pazuzu chuckles darkly, glancing over his wing at Enkidu.

“Well, not yours, I suppose.”

The jab hits right where it is intended, and Enkidu glances off to the side, brow furrowed. “This was not my choice. I suppose none of that matters, though. One of us had to die.”

“And Gilgamesh would not have taken that place over you, Enkidu. In the grand scheme of things, he knows his worth, and your own.” Pazuzu taunts, pausing as they come upon a cave entrance in the side of the mountain. He looks back to Enkidu again. “It is time.”

For a moment instinct tells him to run, but there is nowhere to go. He doesn’t want to look foolish. Swallowing his pride, he walks up to stand next to Pazuzu and nods. “I’m ready.”

Pazuzu studies him a moment before releasing low laughter out of his nose, nodding. “You may be.” He reaches his paw to the door partially covered in darkness and slides the bolt to open, and Enkidu notes that a wealth of dust from it scatters around them. The door opens, and he looks to Pazuzu again. “Are you going to come in with me? What if I run back out?”

Pazuzu shakes his head. “You will not.”

“But what if I do?”

“Once you are inside, you will never leave again, Wild Man. I wanted to bring you here, and now I have done that.”

Enkidu looks at him for a long moment, then to the door. He has a great deal of anxiety about what he will come to find once he passes through. However, he finds some peace in the idea as he stands there staring. At least he will not be tired, at least he can never get sick again. Swallowing his fears down, he nods and takes a few steps towards the opening. He pauses before he comes to the threshold and he turns to look at Pazuzu again.

The demon king watches him, there is no emotion on his face. His eyes are dark, empty. Enkidu isn’t sure what to make of that. He nods again and takes the final step to pass through. He turns once again as a thought occurs to him. “Tell Gilgamesh-….” However, he’s greeted with a wall of rock where the door had once been; the only sign Pazuzu had even been there is a gust of hot air from that direction. This was why Pazuzu had been so certain. He sighs heavily, regretting not thinking to send a message along sooner.

It’s too late for regrets now, though. He tells himself this as he continues into the dark space. His fears are soothed by the quiet he’s initially encountered, and with the hope that he finds the dancing that Pazuzu had told him about. His journey ends as it began, alone in the dark. Helpless to whatever may become of him yet.

The End.

[1] M. Choksi. “Ancient Mesopotamian Beliefs in the Afterlife.” Ancient History Encyclopedia. Ancient History Encyclopedia, June 20, 2014. https://www.ancient.eu/article/701/ancient-mesopotamian-beliefs-in-the-afterlife/.

[2] Brett Maiden. 2018. “Counterintuitive Demons: Pazuzu and Lamaštu in Iconography, Text, and Cognition.” _Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions_ 18 (1): 86–110. doi:10.1163/15692124-12341295.

[3] Kalensky, Patricia. “Statuette of the Demon Pazuzu with an Inscription.” Louvre. Accessed October 17, 2019. https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/statuette-demon-pazuzu-inscription.

[4] Sarah Graff. “Pazuzu: Beyond Good and Evil.” Metropolitan Museum of Art, September 29, 2014. https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2014/assyria-to-iberia/blog/posts/pazuzu.

[5] Laura Feldt. 2016. “Religion, Nature, and Ambiguous Space in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Mountain Wilderness in Old Babylonian Religious Narratives.” _Numen: International Review for the History of Religions_ 63 (4): 347–82. doi:10.1163/15685276-12341392.

[6] Irving Finkel. “Ancient Demons with Irving Finkle| Curator’s Corner season 3 Episode 7.” The British Museum Youtube. March 11, 2018. Video, 5:51. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOT75GB64Hw

[7] Irving Finkel. “Ancient Demons with Irving Finkle| Curator’s Corner season 3 Episode 7.” The British Museum Youtube. March 11, 2018. Video, 5:51. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOT75GB64Hw

[8] M. Choksi. “Ancient Mesopotamian Beliefs in the Afterlife.” Ancient History Encyclopedia. Ancient History Encyclopedia, June 20, 2014. https://www.ancient.eu/article/701/ancient-mesopotamian-beliefs-in-the-afterlife/.

[9] Laura Feldt. 2016. “Religion, Nature, and Ambiguous Space in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Mountain Wilderness in Old Babylonian Religious Narratives.” _Numen: International Review for the History of Religions_ 63 (4): 347–82. doi:10.1163/15685276-12341392.

[10] Brett Maiden. 2018. “Counterintuitive Demons: Pazuzu and Lamaštu in Iconography, Text, and Cognition.” _Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions_ 18 (1): 86–110. doi:10.1163/15692124-12341295.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, this was for a school project so please be gentle. I did my best with the parameters I had to work with. Special thanks to Professor Rose for the encouragement and anyone in the class who has already told me they thought the idea was cool.


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